A mural depicting actor Robin Williams in downtown Belgrade. Unknown artists drew the Academy Award-winning actor and comedian below a Belgrade bridge to pay a tribute following the news that he had been found dead of an apparent suicide at the age of 63. AFP PHOTO / ANDREJ ISAKOVICSource: AFP

“I WISH I was dead.” That was the sentence that jumped out at me from almost every page.

“I feel trapped. Like I’m stuck in a small room and every wall is closing in on me … I just want to go to sleep and never wake up so I don’t have to feel this pain ...”

This girl wanted out.

She was filled with grief, anger, sadness and an abundance of self-loathing for all of those feelings.

My grief quickly turned into depression, an old foe of mine who I thought I had managed to unfriend.

“I am running out of reasons to be alive,” I wrote all those years ago.

Despite a history with depression, I’d never had suicidal thoughts like this before 2007.

Back then, they consumed me. Whatever I did, they were in the front of my mind.

It was the death of actor Robin Williams this week, and subsequent conversations about depression in the media, that prompted me to revisit my journal from all those years ago.

It was tough reading.

They are words no one else has ever seen, and nor will they apart from the select few excerpts­ here.

This was such a private and painful time.

But on the back of such a high-profile death of such a loved personality, I realised that unless people who have been through this and managed to come out the other side are willing to share their experiences, how will anyone who’s there right now find hope?

I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker or doctor. But given how much thought I gave suicide, I consider myself something of an expert.

Which is more than I can say for some of the people who got themselves involved in the debate about depression this week.

There was a newsreader who called Williams a coward, a blogger who wrote an article titled “Robin Williams didn’t die from a disease, he died from his choice”, and a foolish coroner and even more foolish media who reported in cruel detail how the actor’s life ended.

The thing that links all of these careless comments is that they were all clearly made by people who have been fortunate enough not to encounter the black dog in their lives.

And they infuriated me all the more when I read this sentence in my old diary:

“Sometimes I long for a tangible illness. Something that others can understand, a reason­ for me staying in bed, for not going out. Something that would lower people’s expectations­ of me.”

How sad that I felt my disease was not legitimate.

How many other people feel this way and therefore fail to seek help?

Depression is a disease, and no person would choose to have it. It is consuming, confronting, tiring, overwhelming.

To call someone having suicidal thoughts a coward or selfish is the equivalent of calling someone who’s broken their legs useless. It’s not the way to make someone feel better about the shit circumstances they’ve found themselves in.

It’s also highly inaccurate.

Suicide is not a choice. But that’s not to say death is inevitable for anyone who has had these thoughts. Obviously it’s not, or I wouldn’t be here.

And describing a death as a suicide should suffice. When someone dies in a road accident we don’t ask for the precise details of what led to their final breath. Releasing such intimate details is not only hurtful for family and friends who would likely prefer such details remain private, but also to others, as research shows such information­ could act as a directory for the vulnerable.

Just like cancer, depression doesn’t discriminate. It is a bastard that picks on anyone – even one of the funniest men on the planet. And just like cancer, some will lose their life to it, and others won’t. Increasing the number of people who won’t is up to us.

We are a society that rarely talks about it. We often fail to recognise it in others and rarely know what to do about it when we do. It takes a celebrity death to start a conversation.

While there were obviously some unhelpful contributions this week, there were many, many more that might just provide the hope someone is looking for.

I wanted to write this because I no longer want to kill myself.

In fact, when I re-read my journal this week, I couldn’t believe those thoughts had come out of my head. It was like reading the tormented thoughts of a stranger. That’s how far I’ve come.

To anyone who is experiencing those thoughts now, know that it is possible to get past them. Lean on your friends and family, see your GP, engage in counselling, take medication if it’s advised.

Don’t be embarrassed. Don’t feel ashamed. It happens to too many of us to remain silent­. I’m not going to lie, it will involve the hardest yards you’ll ever do. But also the most worthwhile.

Comments on this story

A beautiful and touching read Kylie. Thank you for sharing. I hope someone out there will consider opening up and asking for help after reading this.

Kylie smith Posted at 5:59 PM August 19, 2014

I felt the full impact of depression when I gut my brother down from a noose, and did CPR on him, no one knew he was in state of suicide, no one knew he was depressed. He was with me the night before we sat up laughing about old times and the things we did together as kids. When I got the call I was at his house in minutes thankfully he only lived around the corner. To have to see your brother hanging from a hangs man noose, that's when the adrenaline kicked in And my partner my eldest daughter who was 18, work together to get him down and CPR. He laid in a coma for 2 wks, with swealing of the Brain. The whole experience was very traumatic. He came out of the coma shocking the family and ICU team with no damage at all. I kept my faith that he would be ok and 5 yrs later his going strong. Myself my brother are back to back his year older then me without him, my life wouldn't be the same. I never understood depression until it slapped me in the face.

CLP cabinet minister John Elferink charged taxpayers more than $45,000 for a ‘study trip’ to the United States over the Christmas holidays, including visits to Cape Canaveral Space Base and Universal Studios.